Alison, when I was teaching I used to stress, as hard as I could:

"If you need to ask it, it's NOT a dumb question. But it might become
so, if you keep on asking the same question."

And my response to the smarties who s******ed when the question was
asked, was to remind them that they too had asked questions; and
though theirs may have *seemed* smarter than some others, it was all
relative, & simply a case of acquiring the knowledge - by asking
initially "dumb" questions.

Sorry about the sermon, but asking is step one to knowledge. Please
don't apologise for not knowing.

On 2 Mar 2005 20:14:41 -0800, (Alison) wrote:

Hi everyone,
I have a blc/pot cross which was supposed to reach blooming size 2 or
3 years ago. Back in May I posted about it because it seemed to be
growing another leaf out of the centre of one of the shoots. People
responded that sometimes an orchid that is not quite mature will start
a sheath & then abort it, & I have pretty much ignored the thing till
recently. It looked like a flat leaf, about as long as the main shoot
(about 7"). Through the fall this mutant "leaf" began to turn yellow,
then brown, & it has finally dried out & looked dead & papery. The
tip of it was starting to turn a bit black. It also puffed out
slightly & was full of air. Finally last night I peeled it open to
see what was going on, & lo & behold there is a teeny little curly
thing about half a cm long, right in the bottom of it that looks like
it might want to become a flower spike ... I've never had a catt bloom
before so I'm not sure what I'm looking at, but all this definitely
sounds like the thing is going to try to flower after all, from what I
read in my orchid guide about flower sheaths. So, forgive the dumb
questions, but what I'd like to know is,
Is it supposed to take that long for a flower spike to start, or is
this still a case of the not-quite-mature orchid needing extra time to
get it going?
Isn't the sheath supposed to be full of spike before it turns brown?
Have I screwed anything up by peeling it open so soon? I didn't pull
it off; it's still there, just not sealed on the edges anymore.
Should I be fertilizing still? I have Schultz all-purpose 10-15-10
liquid which I used to use, & Schultz orchid 19-31-17 powder which I
switched to when I finally found some on a trip away (you can't get
anything orchid related where I live). I've been using the orchid
powder, not very accurately measured but diluted.
The plant lives in an unshaded south window which I moved it to over
the summer.
Thanks for your help!

Alison

Dave Gillingham
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